Archive for February, 2008
When CBS canceled Jericho in May of last year, angry fans sent the network 40,000 pounds of nuts (after the main character in the show, who uses the term “nuts!” frequently). The nut campaign originated from Shaun Daily of BlogTalkRadio.com. “I meant for people to send the little packets of peanuts that they have on the airlines,” he said, “but then it just blew up.” So tonight, the show is back from the dead. “‘Jericho’ was on the crest of what the Internet has come to show us is that you have an audience, the use of viral campaigns and how effective they are,” says CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler. Wanna catch up on the show before tonight’s return? CBS.com is streaming all of season one’s episodes here.
Related: Did a WetPaint Wiki bring ‘Jericho’ back from the grave?
February 12th, 2008
There was a little buzz in the online newspaper world a few weeks back when interactive vice presidents from Belo, Wes Jackson, and Scripps, Bob Benz, announced they were resigning their positions for new challenges. Those challenges are now public in the form of Maroon Ventures, where Jackson and Benz will be joining founding partners Chris Tippie and Charity Huff, both of whom previously hailed from the local SEO firm WebVisible. Deeply involved in the Yahoo newspaper consortium, Maroon will be working with media companies and emerging technologies to develop new businesses in the local space. Press release follows after the jump….
Read the full post February 12th, 2008
CNN’s successful user generated content effort is being launched on its own site this week as ireport.com is set to go live. MediaWeek got a sneak preview of the new site. According to the story, the site will be similar to YouTube, with all content being published without an editorial validation of the submissions. “The community will decide what the news is,” said Susan Grant, executive vp of CNN News Services. “We are not going to discourage or encourage anything…iReport will be completely unvetted.”
February 11th, 2008
Eight months ago, I truly lost my remote, leaving my job as manager of a local TV station website to do multimedia work at a metro newspaper. (Well, I actually left for an awesome job that I had to ultimately turn down due to family issues.) Anyway, I’ve gotten questions from TV lifers who are wondering what it’s like to work at a paper, so here goes…
Read the full post February 11th, 2008
When NBCU & Fox announced Hulu would allow embedded players… I thought “gee, I should start a site with all the videos embedded and surround it with Google ads.” And I didn’t follow through. Shocker. But anyway — someone had the same (admittedly obvious) idea - and launched OpenHulu. All the same content, no sign-in needed.
Hulu reps told TVWeek that the open clone is basically cool with them.
February 11th, 2008
Last night’s episode of The Simpsons featured Marge starting a successful chain of gyms targeted at women. Hilarity ensued.
The FOX-sitcom took another poke at its corporate owner:
February 11th, 2008
That’s Jeff Jarvis’ conclusion after participating in Reuters’ mojo project, which involves recording and feeding video from Nokia N82 phones. By using Qik.com (as we’ve blogged about before), you can even go live. “A wired journalist without a camera and connectivity is like a hack without a pencil,” Javis writes.
February 11th, 2008
Hearst Interactive Media and Venrock have invested $7.5 million in first-round funding in TurnHere, a company that produces online video clips for companies like CitySearch and Discovery. Explains Beet.tv, “TurnHere has organized a network of some 3000 independent videographers from around the globe who are creating about 400 videos a month in travel, real estate, publishing, financial services and retail. In addition to creating videos, TurnHere is syndicating content on YouTube and other channels.” In other words, TurnHere is light-years ahead of most TV operations in producing low-cost online advertorial video. Watch an interview with TurnHere’s founder here.
February 10th, 2008
Think of this show on Current.com as The Soup meets the Today Show. Because who has time to watch four hours of morning TV?
February 10th, 2008
“Off-air reporters” from the networks and cable nets are embedded with the candidates, shooting just about everything that moves. Brian Stelter in the NY Times has a great profile article on how these embeds “have changed the dynamic of this year’s election.”
February 10th, 2008
The two are “reviving their merger talks,” reports London’s Times Online. TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington pans the idea. “AOL plugs none of Yahoo’s holes,” he writes, adding he still belives the Microsoft deal is going to happen.
February 10th, 2008
No, I didn’t write the editorial in this week’s Broadcasting & Cable. But it mirrors much of what we’ve been writing on Lost Remote: newspapers are in a freefall, and flashy formulaic TV newscasts could be next. “Most network magazine shows, and morning newscasts, are now more like People than Newsweek or Time,” writes B&C. “Many local newscasts are in trouble because their cookie-cutter Action Eyewitness Newscenter formats are parodies of news, not purveyors of it. Alas, cable news, on its worst days, is just a dogfight between ‘celebrity’ ideological egotists.” The editorial says “our provocation is intentional” and suggests journalists visit the Newseum “to be reminded that it’s the news profession they are in, not showbiz.” Well said.
Adds TR: “My dear former professionmates have indeed found themselves — and until 2 months ago, I was right there with ‘em — in a series of little ruts that just keep getting deeper and deeper. If the stories don’t fall into the framework for those little ruts — weather, child molesters, abused animals, etc. — fuggedaboudit. I know, I know, supposedly the ratings /researchshow that’s what people ‘want.’ Well, not me. I want information, and sitting through a packaged half-hour or hour is not an efficient way to get it. Let’s bury the transmitters along with the presses and just get on with the everything-online world already.”
February 10th, 2008
Showrunners are due back to work on Monday. The rest of the writers are due back on Wednesday, assuming they vote in favor of the agreement (as expected) on Tuesday night.
February 10th, 2008
The WGA and producers have reached a tentative agreement which could send the writers back to work as early as Monday. Here’s the key quote from the WGA: “It is an agreement that protects a future in which the Internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery,” they said in a memo to members. “It creates formulas for revenue-based residuals in new media, provides access to deals and financial data to help us evaluate and enforce those formulas, and establishes the principle that, ‘When they get paid, we get paid.’”
Explains the NY Times, “The tentative agreement became possible when the sides reached a handshake deal last week on a crucial term under which writers would be paid a fixed residual amounting to about $1,300 for the right to stream a television program online. In the third year of their contract, the writers would achieve one of their major goals — payments amounting to 2 percent of the distributor’s revenue from such streams.”
I’m impressed by the acceptance that the internet will replace traditional, linear TV as the “primary means of content creation and delivery.”
February 9th, 2008
Lots of news for a Saturday. The Wall Street Journal just posted a story that says Yahoo’s board will spurn Microsoft’s offer because it “massively undervalues” Yahoo and doesn’t take into account the risks involved if regulators nix the deal. Microsoft offered $31 a share — a 62 percent premium at the time of the offer — but the WSJ says a source said the company probably wouldn’t listen to anything under $40 a share. So would Microsoft go hostile? Unlikely, as that would cause “deep resentment” among the rank-and-file engineers, the Journal reports. And Yahoo has taken the “poison pill” provision to help prevent a hostile takeover. (WSJ sub. req.)
February 9th, 2008
A survey from a UK television company says nearly half of the men they asked would give up sex for 6 months if they were given a 50-inch plasma TV. Only a third of women would make that trade. According to the firm, this proves size matters more to men than women.
February 8th, 2008
News sites like the BBC are banned in China, which certainly would result in some negative coverage from visiting journalists who wouldn’t even be able to check their own websites. So now China is saying that it may… may… allow access to banned sites by the Summer Olympics. “We are studying this now based on suggestions of some journalists and a study of the experiences of other countries, so during the Olympics there may be some changes,” said Wang Hui, head of media relations for the organizing committee. “This is one of the ways the Olympics may promote progress in China.”
February 8th, 2008
Facebook has launched a co-branded NCAA March Madness brackets application that ties into CBSSports.com (see it at Facebook.com/brackets). During the tournament, Facebook users will see links to CBSSports.com’s extremely popular live coverage of the event. Last year, March Madness on Demand on CBSSports.com served up millions of streams and attracted $9 million in advertising. A little prediction: this Facebook application will be very popular. Last year, 2.6 million Facebook users participated in a similar brackets tournament. (Thanks, Allen for the tip!)
February 8th, 2008
Hearst-Argyle Television EVP Terry Mackin, who headed up digital strategy there, has left to take the top job at Univision’s station group. “He will be instrumental in further integrating our television operations, leveraging our assets and delivering results,” said Univision president and chief operating officer Ray Rodriguez. “His understanding of the industry, extensive experience and vision will greatly contribute to our growth.”
February 8th, 2008
TechCrunch is reporting that Yahoo’s board is meeting today to consider Microsoft’s offer to buy the company. Stay tuned…
February 8th, 2008
Yahoo has launched a new service, Live.Yahoo.com, which allows anyone with a webcam to stream themselves live. “We’re still testing it, but for now the service is very unstable and keeps going down,” writes TechCrunch. “It’s also clearly got a ways to go with features - videos are not archived for playback, for example, meaning once it’s broadcast live, that’s it.” One cool feature: You can track Yahoo Live’s Twitter account to see what’s streaming right now (similar to LiveNewsCameras.com).
February 7th, 2008
Following the lead of CNN.com, CBSNews.com has begun linking to affiliates for local news stories. CBS News announced the plans to their affiliates today, asking for the stations to send them links to a story that “deserves the national spotlight.” It’s great to see more national websites recognizing the quality of local journalism from their TV partners in these markets rather than relying on wire copy that’s available on many sites. It’s also appreciated by the stations who get the traffic spikes, I’m sure. (Disclosure: My employer owns two CBS-affiliated stations that could get linked to.)
In this photo you can see the link in the bottom right to WCAX.
February 7th, 2008
You knew this was coming. Google News now allows you to localize a section of the stories. Scroll down just beneath the fold for the box to type in your city or zip code. I typed in Seattle, and a local news aggregation section appeared:
And that’s just the first two stories in the list. “This is pretty huge, folks, and it spotlights the need for everybody in the local news business to adopt best practices when it comes to unbundled distribution,” writes Terry Heaton. True enough, as Google News ranked #9 in Nielsen-Netratings for December — higher than USAToday.com and WashingtonPost.com.
February 7th, 2008
Former Jobster CEO Jason Goldberg is working on a stealth startup called Social Median to “participate in the disruption” of traditional news. No details yet, other than the company will strive to deliver more relevant, personalized news to users. “I don’t think anyone has cracked the code on helping consumers get their news,” Goldberg says.
February 7th, 2008
CBS has teamed up with Loopt to serve mobile ads tailored to a specific user’s location and the time of day. So if you’re near a restaurant during happy hour, it could serve an ad to that effect. “Location-based advertising is the sweet spot in mobile marketing,” CBS Mobile executive vice president Cyriac Roeding said in a statement. “We are thrilled for CBS to be the first media company in the country to help our clients realize highly relevant yet nonintrusive mobile ads using location-based technology.” The technology will power ads across CBS’ news and sports WAP sites.
February 7th, 2008
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